Smart Growth UK

Hopes Northumberland Line will expand to Newbiggin Rail campaigners welcome council support for extending the line to Newbiggin.

Further extension of Northumberland Line mooted. tinyurl.com/mtts2mhz

Picture of multi-modal street

Here’s something that’s really important for everyone to understand.

If we design our cities just for cars, they fail everyone, including drivers.

If we design our cities with many great CHOICES in how to get around, they work better for everyone, including drivers.

Spread the word.

TransportationCamp DC Join us on Saturday, January 10, 2026, at Catholic University's Pryzbyla Center for another year of TransportationCamp DC.

On January 10, join us and @t4america.bsky.social at #TCamp26 to discuss how we can create a transportation system that works better for all. 🚌🚶🧑‍🦽🚴

Learn more and get your tickets while they're still available! ⤵️
t4america.org/transportati...

Liverpool council going to court over developers' unpaid £1.5m Liverpool City Council is to take firms to court over cash promised as part of planning deals.

Would that be some of the developers who @naturalengland.bsky.social is now being told to stop regulating and become a "partner and enabler" with?
tinyurl.com/yprdecj8

Second properties – data from the English Housing Survey Data from the English Housing Survey (EHS) (2021-2022), gives some information about the number of households in England with a second property. The data covers properties let in the rented market, ho...

www.cornwallecon.com/post/second-...

Do not look for any intellectual depth there. Anyone who takes a look at the planning brief and thinks it can be summarised in a slogan that can fit on a hat is out of their depth.

"Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth" - Abraham Lincoln

"Government of the developers, by the developers, for the developers, shall cause the Earth to perish" - ministers

But they control most of the media and many politicians.

Not sure on your point about few people being swayed by media coverage. Here in the UK there's a big climate-denying trend in populist media (& politicians) which feeds deniers' mixture of fear & perceived self-interest. They're constantly told renewables will make power more costly for decades.

Not a good moment to further undermine #WaterSecurity by announcing plans for further building in the already water-stressed Oxford-Cambridge Corridor (or whatever the Arc's called this week).

Cutting home insulation funding will imperil UK’s climate goals, Reeves told Energy firms and charities urge chancellor to avoid short-term fix that could also harm low-income households Rachel Reeves has been told that cutting funding for home insulation at the budget would risk the UK’s climate goals and hurt low-income households in a joint intervention by energy firms, fuel poverty charities and environmental groups. In a letter to the chancellor, more than 60 groups and companies urged Reeves not to take such a damaging “short-term fix” to slash funding for more energy-efficient homes to pay for a reduction in energy bills. Continue reading...

Cutting home insulation funding will imperil UK’s climate goals, Reeves told

BLOG The @naturalengland.bsky.social quango has announced that it's no longer a regulator but is now a partner and enabler.
Inevitably that partnership is with the Goverment's obsession - house building.
So it's time to ask if the quango is any longer fit for purpose.
tinyurl.com/yv3rs4zf

Definitely for IC vehicles too.

New set of forest towns to be built between Oxford and Cambridge Communities in the middle of new national forest to show how housebuilding can be delivered alongside nature

Three very obvious questions:-
1. How to make good the resultant huge hit to the UK's already inadequate food production?
2. Where would an area already short of water find it?
3. Why increase the disparity in economic activity between north and south?
tinyurl.com/wfdasdcf

There's something deeply wrong with a Government that whips 102 (mostly elderly) peers to vote against an amendment at 11pm on an utterly innocuous conservation measure.
Serious questions now need to be asked as to why ministers are taking orders from the house building industry.

Yes but...
Electoral systems like the UK's are rightly criticised for giving all the power to one (minority-supported) party, however people voted, even when majorities of voters bitterly opposed it.
Elected mayors also do this, but also give all the power to one individual.

Planning and Infrastructure Bill. Division 6: held on 3 November 2025 Contents: 36 Not Contents: 102

No government defeats in the Lords last night in the final night of report stage for the Planning & Infrastructure Bill. Even swift bricks didn't manage to get over the line (vote below).
Next is Lords Third Reading on 10 November

📢 40+ NGOs have written to the PM urging him to uphold the Aarhus Convention – the cornerstone of environmental justice

The Convention protects your right to:
✅ Access environmental information
✅ Have a say in decisions that affect nature
✅ Seek environmental justice affordably

BAD NEWS! Should the swift brick vote have taken place earlier today we would have won. Tories whipped YES but by the time of the vote, support had gone home just like 2 years ago. It is an AGONISING reality. Tell your MP & steve.reed.mp@parliament.uk what you think. GUTTED.

When Bikes Outnumber Cars: What Scotland’s Cycling Surge Can Teach North America Scotland’s largest city reached a milestone that would make any transportation planner in Portland, or Montreal do a double take.

“In May 2025, Scotland’s largest city [Glasgow] reached a milestone that would make any transportation planner in Portland or Montreal do a double take: during the morning rush hour, there were more bicycles than cars traveling along Victoria Road, a major artery…” Via @momentummag.bsky.social

Blockheads v so-called "blockers".

US accused of threatening EU diplomats during bid to kill green shipping rules Negotiators at shipping talks in London were told both they and their countries could be punished unless they voted with the U.S.

European negotiators were personally targeted by their American counterparts during a brutal negotiation over green shipping rules, European Commission officials told POLITICO. 

This highly unusual gambit left diplomats shaken after the meeting. 

Grey Belt Tracker The Green Belt is at great risk under the 'grey belt' rules. We want to keep an eye on countryside and farmland that is being designated as 'grey belt'. Originally, when Sir Keir Starmer promised to p...

The Community Planning Alliance has launched a tracker to record every piece of countryside that is being rated #GreyBelt under the Government plan to destroy the effectiveness of green belt protection.
Please fill in as much of the form as you can and submit it.
tinyurl.com/yrczfc6h

Photo showing Ghent's historic stone castle with battlements and towers under a clear blue sky, overlooking a modern street cafe with people walking by.

Ghent in Belgium has a car-free city centre, a modern tram and bus network, and plentiful walking and cycling routes.
On #WorldCitiesDay, what's your favourite city for its transport network?

Guest blog - Blanket bogs and windfarms by @green--jenny.bsky.social

Blog: markavery.info/2025/10/30/g...

#peat #bog #turbines #renewable #climate #walshaw #hebden #haworth #floods #petition #PIB

So builders call for another big "Help to Buy" subsidy.
In reality that's a way of subsidising increases in house prices. It does nothing for buyers.

Government set to miss 1.5m target, housebuilders warn Housebuilders tell the government's budget watchdog the new homes target for England is too optimistic.

Yes, we know.
Developers don't want to build them.
Not enough workers or materials.
Financiers don't want to invest.
Sprawl-type development is highly destructive.
But... ministers have sold their souls to Tufton Street's #YimbyLobby.
Time for a rethink.
tinyurl.com/4up9bc73

Be interesting to see the response from @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social.

🚨In response to the government's publication of their Carbon Budget and Growth Delivery plan this afternoon, our T&E UK Director Anna Krajinska has the following response

[A thread]

A blog musing on (and not on) Walshaw Moor markavery.info/2025/10/29/o...

"If there were a fan club for Walshaw Moor then I’d be a member, despite never having set foot on it."

#wuthering #hebden #haworth #peat #daftwindfarm #floods
#publicland #grouse